


i wish a pulse would jump beneath my wooden fingertips

by makemelovely



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Pinocchio - Freeform, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19786990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely
Summary: When Dawn was little her favorite movie was Pinocchio.





	i wish a pulse would jump beneath my wooden fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> tw: cutting. It's essentially from that scene in Blood Ties where Dawn is trying to see if she's real by cutting herself to see if she bleeds.

When Dawn was little she watched Pinocchio over and over again, absolutely enthralled with the little wooden boy who became real. She used to touch her fingers to her cheek and imagine what smooth wood would feel like. She used to touch childishly clumsy fingers to her pulse, imagining a wooden thump, a hollowness in her wrist that reflected the wood state Pinocchio was in.

She would imagine magic running through her veins, turning her from wood to flesh. She imagined what it would feel like to be fake and then real, and how wondrous it would feel to be really truly  _ finally  _ real.

Now she knows what it feels like to be fake and then real, and she only feels bitter. Funny how things turn out.

* * *

She takes the knife and slices it across her arm, half expecting skin to split and blood to well and half expecting it to scrape against wood.  _ A modern day Pinocchio,  _ Dawn thinks, and she wants to laugh and cry and go back to what she was before.

(She's not sure if she means going back to the nothingness and becoming energy or going back to being obliviously human.)

(She's not sure which one she would prefer.)

Her skin splits open, and Dawn smiles at the blood even as tears streak down her cheeks. The blood slides down and down, and Dawn thinks about the emptiness inside of her. She thinks that maybe her insides are wooden while her outsides aren't, and she wonders how Pinnochio felt in the moments where he was neither wood nor boy while still being both.

The numbness swells up inside of her, and Dawn feels almost dizzy looking at the red streaked so close to the green. “Am I real?” She asks herself, half expecting and angel or a fairy or whatever to appear out of nowhere and smile at her, all kindness and sugar sweet with absolutely  _ no  _ ulterior motive.

She imagines the fairy would stroke her hair and dry her tears and tell her that she’s as real as anybody else. That she always has been and she always will be and nothing will change that.

(About a year later Willow will be standing in front of her, smiling cruelly and offering to turn Dawn back.

_ “Back to what?”  _ Dawn will want to scream at her.

_ “Back to what you really are.”  _ Willow would say if she asked.  _ “A green blob of magical energy.”  _ Her eyes will be black and there will be veins running down her face.  _ “A key that served its purpose.”  _

Dawn will imagine her fingers turning to wood and her toes too. And then her hands and arms and it will burn without really burning. Energy searing through her hardening bloodstream, and her heart slowly forming an outer shell that will creep inwards until Dawn is Pinnochio in reverse.

A real girl turned wooden.)

(Except she was never really a real girl.)

* * *

Two months, three weeks, and four days after Buffy dies, Dawn stumbles upon Pinnochio. She’s channel surfing, bored out of her mind and trying to think about anything but Buffy. Buffy her sister, Buffy her protector, Buffy the girl who died so she wouldn't.

Buffy who  _ left  _ her.

(Nobody ever said grief was reasonable.)

She watches as Pinnochio becomes a real boy, smile bright with joy and relief and love for his maker and the fairy and  _ life. _

Dawn licks her lips, feels the movement all the way down in her soul. She breathes because she needs to, because she's _ human.  _ She feels her heart beating and her pulse thumping steadily.

“I’m real.” She whispers, mouth forming the words and savoring them. It feels like a lie, and she can't pinpoint what feels wrong about it.

She thinks about how she’s alive, and then she thinks about how happy Pinnochio was to be real and it doesn't feel like it should.

She should be happy. She should be elated.

She should feel real, but there's an empty spot on the couch for Buffy, and she can remember sitting there waiting for her to come home for that whole summer she ran away, but she was never really there.

That's the whole point, isn't it?

Dawn was never really here.

* * *

When Dawn was six she fell off her bike, and she cried and cried. Buffy wiped away the sparse blood on her scraped knees and got her to get back on her bike.

When Dawn was ten she accidentally burned her elbow on the stove, and the scar is still there. She runs her fingers over it sometimes. It's a reminder that it happened, that she's real even if the memory is fake.

She spends a lot of time wondering what is real and what's been planted by the Monks. Does she actually like cherry flavored lip gloss or does she like strawberry? Does she actually like soccer or is that just a flaky memory?

Who is she beneath the destiny they carved out for her?

Will she ever be her own person or will she always be the Key?

* * *

_ I am a human being,  _ Dawn thinks. Her nose grows an inch.

_ I have a sister and a mother and a father,  _ Dawn thinks. Another inch.

_ I have always been Dawn Summers,  _ she thinks. One more inch.

_ I will only ever be Dawn Summers,  _ she thinks. One final inch.

With every lie she tells she imagines her nose growing an inch. It’s funny because nothing ever comes of these lies except the guilt and wretchedness that hangs heavy around her heart like a mist or a thick fog.

The lies sit uncomfortably in her chest, nestled between her ribs and her lungs.

_ “I don't want to go back.”  _ She had told Willow, but it had been half lie half truth. Half an inch to compromise.

She doesn't want to go back, but she doesn't really want to stay here either.

She’s trapped in the middle, and wooden limbs can only stretch so far.

* * *

When Dawn was little she used to watch Pinnochio constantly. Buffy would watch sometimes, pajama clad knees pressed against Dawn’s back as Buffy plaited her hair. She would card her fingers through the long strands and hum pop songs as she twisted the pieces of hair together.

Joyce would always look in, smiling affectionately before heading back to the kitchen where she would do the crossword or inventory or taxes or the dishes or other boring adult stuff that Dawn hadn't cared about.

Dawn would mouth the words and Buffy would make fun of her for it, teasing her until Dawn’s face turned pink and she laughed because it was  _ Buffy  _ and Dawn adored her older sister and wouldn't ever dream of getting mad at her.

Then Buffy stopped watching it with her, preferring to spend hours on the phone talking to Susan or Diana about how Jimmy was so going to ask her to the dance, but of course she’d wait until Ethan asked her.

Dawn used to sit on the floor, mouthing the words with nobody to tease her about it or plait her hair or laugh with. A sad lonely seed was planted in her heart, and when Dawn was fourteen it grew.

Dawn read files she shouldn't have, and maybe the Monks shouldn't have made her so curious or nosy or whatever Buffy would call her. They should've made her less rebellious or more subdued and less emotional or impulsive or any other negative word Dawn could describe herself as. Maybe they should've just made her into a rock and thrown her into the sea.

Maybe if the Monks had done better she wouldn't be Dawn Summers, fake little girl and the Slayer’s baby sister.

There are a million maybes in Dawn’s head, and she thinks too much about all of them.

* * *

Dawn remembers.

She remembers falling off her bike and watching cartoons and singing in the car and going out to eat. She remembers report cards and classes and the day somebody told her Santa Claus wasn't real. She remembers Hank and Joyce shouting and Buffy coming home bloody and bruised and the look on Joyce’s face when they went to the mental hospital to visit her. She remembers holidays and shopping trips and the time they went to Florida. Game nights and spaghetti dinners and learning her times table. Dancing in her room and dating Owen Burkinson for like two days when she was nine. She remembers everything.

The problem is that Dawn didn't really do those things. The memories she has aren't hers. They don't belong to her and they were never real.

The problem is that Dawn remembers being human even though she never was.

* * *

When Dawn was little her favorite movie was Pinnochio.

Apparently the Monks have one great sense of humor.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr @makemelovely


End file.
